Something that used to terrify me when I was little that doesn’t anymore… I am not as scared of spiders as I used to be. Like, I’m not gonna choose to have one crawl on me, don’t get me wrong. But there’s a whole bunch that are around in our basement and like, that’s where my bike is and I live harmoniously with them. Like we’ve had a couple that are very big and creep me out from afar. I’m not gonna go near them. But I also don’t cry or scream like I used to and that makes me sound terrible but like I’ve been startled by spiders.
There was one night — or one morning, I was waking up and I went to the restroom and as I’m sitting there something falls down from the sky – or the ceiling. And it was a very black, big spider and he crawled underneath the door out into our bedroom and I never saw him again. And that’s a little um, scary to think about. But then again like he’s more terrified of me than I am of him. And I think my 30s has brought me that true realization that when my mom said that, she meant it. I have yet to see a spider that’s like, “Hey girl!” or aggressively coming at me like, they’re all trying to get away.
And now that I’ve taken up gardening, I really recognize how much they are our friends and they keep the really creepy things away from my flowers and they do good things. And so, I don’t go for – like I don’t ever try to actively kill a spider. Now if it’s in my space, I will do it and like, they don’t jump. I can definitely take a big wad of toilet paper and take care of them now, like I’m an adult. But I’m hoping my kids are not as scared because I’m not gonna love having to do what my mom used to have to do, which is kill them. Because like I would scan my bedroom walls, it was like a part of my ritual. Before I turned off the night light. I would look at all – or the light – I would look at all the corners of my room and I would look at all the parts of my wall and I would scan it for spiders and then I would allow her to turn off the light so I could have the night light. And then even with the night light, I would keep scanning ‘cause I was convinced they were gonna come out in the middle of the night.
And when I read the myth about eating spiders in our sleep, like I fully believed it, even though that’s been proven that that’s probably not accurate. That – how does anyone even study that? Spiders don’t really wanna be eaten. So like, they’re not necessarily going to go into your face or your mouth. So, I am not nearly as terrified, but I’ll tell you I used to like bawl and be – I, I gave up Girl Scout camp because I couldn’t fathom spiders potentially being outdoors while I was in the cabin.