Spiders

If you have a really good imagination and a penchant for being overly dramatic, the front yard of my house is somewhat like a tropical jungle. It’s really small but the landlords obviously decided to ignore that not insignificant fact when planting approximately 3258 palm trees in it. As a result, you can’t get from your car to the front door of my place without engaging in battle with an unrelenting force of palm fronds, which is super fun when they’re wet.

Given there are so many trees so close together; it’s ideal for night spiders to spin their webs between the branches. I should probably admit that we’ve never actually encountered any of these spiders but I know they’re there. Spiders are always there, just waiting for an opportunity to use their ninja skills in a way that will haunt your dreams for all of eternity.

Due to my crippling fear of spiders, when I have to make the trek from my car to the front steps at night, I use my phone as a torch and walk very carefully, with all of my senses in a super heightened state, ready to attack any shadow that dares to move.

One night recently, I was bravely making the trip through the front yard with my head up and my eyes alert, convinced that this regular trip would surely entitle me to some kind of bravery award in the future, maybe they’d even create a new award and name it after me. I breathed a sigh of relief as I made it to the safe zone- our front steps.

As I went to climb the first step, I heard a heart attack inducing, panicked hissing kind of sound that was so far from anything I’d ever heard before that in that moment I was convinced that the aliens had finally decided to make contact and it didn’t sound like they’d come in peace! This sound was followed by a blur of fuzz moving at such a speed that indicated perhaps I wasn’t the only one who had just had a heart attack. It turns out I’d been so busy making sure there were no spiders that I almost stood on a possum.

I have decided to turn this experience into a life lesson otherwise I’m just the girl who is so scared of imaginary spiders that I can convince myself that aliens exist. And nobody wants to be THAT girl!

Somewhere between the ages of about 22 and 25, I became a ‘just in case’ kind of girl. Not in the Scouts ‘Always be prepared’ kind of way but in the anxious, ‘what if things go wrong’ kind of way. Usually my ‘just in case’ experiences were directly related to what other people thought. ‘I won’t do that, just in case someone thinks it’s weird.’ ‘I won’t say that, just in case someone thinks it’s dumb.’ Other times, it related to life experiences. ‘I won’t let myself get close to that super cute guy just in case I get hurt.’

Becoming this girl snuck up on me because it’s almost the exact opposite of who I was growing up. My little experience above is timely in regards to so many changes my life is going through at the moment though.

You can walk so cautiously ‘just in case’ there are spiders that you miss the possums that are actually there. It’s ok to be scared of spiders (I dare you to tell me otherwise!) and it’s ok to be prepared for them if they turn up but it’s not ok to let the fear of the possibility ruin the experience that actually awaits.

One night, a bat also flew at my face when I was making this same journey but there are no life lessons there, it was nothing more or less than terrifying!