🔗 Share this article

I maintain the conviction that it is always possible to evolve. My view is you truly can instruct a veteran learner, provided that the mature being is open-minded and eager for knowledge. So long as the individual in question is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and strive to be a better dog.

Alright, I confess, I am that seasoned creature. And the skill I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am decrepit? It is an important one, a feat I have grappled with, frequently, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of those large arachnids. Apologies to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be grounded about my capacity for development as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. Encompassing a trio of instances in the last week. In my own living space. Though unseen, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving a baseline of normalcy about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). In my formative years, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to guarantee I never had to handle any myself, but I still freaked out if one was clearly in the same room as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had crawled on to the living room surface. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (for fear that it chased me), and emptying a generous amount of bug repellent toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and irritate everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, whomever I was in a relationship with or sharing a home with was, as a matter of course, the most courageous of spiders between us, and therefore responsible for managing the intruder, while I emitted low keening sounds and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to forget about its presence before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I visited a friend’s house where there was a notably big huntsman who made its home in the sill, for the most part stationary. In order to be more comfortable with its presence, I imagined the spider as a female entity, a gal, part of the group, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. Admittedly, it appears quite foolish, but it worked (to some degree). Or, making a conscious choice to become more fearless worked.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the rational arguments not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I know they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way possible. The sight of their multiple limbs transporting them at that frightening pace triggers my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They claim to only have eight legs, but I maintain that multiplies when they move.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that taking the steps of trying not to instantly leap out of my body and run away when I see one, trying to remain still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has proven somewhat effective.

Simply due to the reality that they are hairy creatures that scuttle about at an alarming rate in a way that haunts my sleep, does not justify they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. It is possible to acknowledge when my reactions have been misguided and fueled by unfounded fear. It is uncertain I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and taking it outside” level, but miracles happen. Some life is left within this seasoned learner yet.