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I am someone who believes that it is never too late to transform. I think you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the old dog is open-minded and ready for growth. Provided that the person is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and strive to be a better dog.

OK yes, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am attempting to master, although I am decrepit? It is an important one, an issue I have grappled with, frequently, for my all my days. My ongoing effort … to develop a calmer response toward huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be realistic about my potential for change as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing a trio of instances in the recent past. In my own living space. You can’t see me, but I’m shaking my head with discomfort as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but my project has been at least becoming a standard level of composure about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who adore them). During my childhood, I had plenty of male siblings around to guarantee I never had to handle any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the immediate vicinity as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and attempting to manage a spider that had crawled on to the family room partition. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (for fear that it pursued me), and emptying half a bottle of insect spray toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it did reach and disturb everyone in my house.

As I got older, whoever I was dating or sharing a home with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders in our pairing, and therefore in charge of handling the situation, while I emitted frightened noises and ran away. In moments of solitude, my strategy was simply to exit the space, turn off the light and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to enter again.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a companion's home where there was a very large huntsman who lived in the window frame, mostly just hanging out. In order to be less fearful, I envisioned the spider as a 'girlie', a girlie, one of us, just chilling in the sun and listening to us yap. It sounds quite foolish, but it was effective (to some degree). Or, actively deciding to become less scared did the trick.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the logical reasons not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I know they prey upon things like insect pests (the bane of my existence). I know they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to scuttle like that. They propel themselves in the utterly horrifying and somehow offensive way conceivable. The sight of their numerous appendages propelling them at that terrible speed triggers my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I am convinced that increases exponentially when they are in motion.

But it is no fault of their own that they have unnerving limbs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that taking the steps of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and run away when I see one, attempting to stay calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has actually started to help.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that dart around extremely quickly in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my shrieks of terror. It is possible to acknowledge when I’ve been wrong and motivated by irrational anxiety. I’m not sure I’ll ever attain the “catching one in a Tupperware container and relocating it outdoors” stage, but miracles happen. A bit of time remains left in this veteran of life yet.