Here's an Minuscule Fear I Aim to Defeat. Fandom is Out of Reach, but Can I at Least Be Calm About Spiders?

I maintain the conviction that it is always possible to transform. I think you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the mature being is willing and ready for growth. As long as the person is willing to admit when it was wrong, and strive to be a more enlightened self.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am working to acquire, although I am decrepit? It is an important one, a feat I have struggled with, frequently, for my all my days. My ongoing effort … to develop a calmer response toward huntsman spiders. My regrets to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be grounded about my capacity for development as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is imposing, dominant, and the one I run into regularly. Encompassing on three separate occasions in the previous seven days. Within my dwelling. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing at the very thought as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least becoming a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders from my earliest years (as opposed to other children who adore them). In my formative years, I had plenty of male siblings around to ensure I never had to confront any myself, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the general area as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “dealt” with it by retreating to a remote corner, practically in the adjoining space (lest it ran after me), and spraying a significant portion of pesticide toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, whomever I was in a relationship with or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders between us, and therefore tasked with handling the situation, while I produced low keening sounds and beat a hasty retreat. In moments of solitude, my strategy was simply to leave the room, plunge the room into darkness and try to forget about its being before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I visited a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the casement, mostly just stationary. As a means to be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a girlie, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and listening to us chat. This may seem quite foolish, but it was effective (to some degree). Or, actively deciding to become more fearless worked.

Regardless, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the sensible justifications not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I know they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (my mortal enemies). It is well-established they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to move like that. They propel themselves in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way possible. The vision of their many legs carrying them at that frightening pace causes my primordial instincts to go into high alert. They ostensibly only have eight legs, but I maintain that increases exponentially when they are in motion.

Yet it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. My experience has shown that employing the techniques of trying not to instantly leap out of my body and flee when I see one, trying to remain calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has actually started to help.

The mere fact that they are hairy creatures that scuttle about with startling speed in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my high-pitched vocalizations. It is possible to acknowledge when my reactions have been misguided and driven by baseless terror. I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the “catching one in a Tupperware container and relocating it outdoors” level, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years within this seasoned learner yet.