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I am someone who believes that it is never too late to change. I think you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, on the condition that the old dog is receptive and eager for knowledge. So long as the old dog is willing to admit when it was mistaken, and work to become a more enlightened self.

Well, admittedly, I am that seasoned creature. And the trick I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an significant challenge, something I have battled against, often, for my all my days. The quest I'm on … to become less scared of those large arachnids. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my capacity for development as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing a trio of instances in the previous seven days. In my own living space. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing and grimacing as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but my project has been at least attaining Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (in contrast to other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to handle any personally, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and attempting to manage a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (for fear that it ran after me), and discharging half a bottle of pesticide toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and annoy everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whoever I was dating or sharing a home with was, by default, the bravest of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with handling the situation, while I made low keening sounds and beat a hasty retreat. If I was on my own, my method was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I visited a pal's residence where there was a very large huntsman who lived in the sill, for the most part stationary. As a means to be more comfortable with its presence, I imagined the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, one of us, just lounging in the sun and overhearing us chat. Admittedly, it appears quite foolish, but it had an impact (to some degree). Alternatively, the deliberate resolution to become more fearless did the trick.

Whatever the case, I’ve tried to keep it up. I reflect upon all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I know they eat things like insect pests (creatures I despise). It is well-established they are one of nature’s beautiful, benign creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They move in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their multiple limbs transporting them at that alarming velocity induces my caveman brain to enter panic mode. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I am convinced that increases exponentially when they are in motion.

But it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have just as much right to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I’ve found that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, working to keep calm and collected, and deliberately thinking about their good points, has actually started to help.

Just because they are hairy creatures that scuttle about at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. It is possible to acknowledge when I’ve been wrong and driven by unfounded fear. I doubt I’ll ever attain the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” level, but you never know. Some life is left for this veteran of life yet.