During my year of major life changes (divorce, left job, started seminary, moved twice, sold old house, purchased new house, lost friends, made new friends), I began dating again. My ex-husband and I were together for eight years, five of them married. So I was a bit rusty. I dated a lot in college, but that was college with college boys and a college schedule. This was big-girl dating, and I wasn’t sure how the process worked in the big-girl world.
Arachnidiot (ar ak ni’ di ot) – n. A person, who, having wandered into an “invisible” spider web, begins gyrating and flailing about wildly.
The signs were there, yet I did not heed them. In 1990, I had another life. I was married to a different man, had a regular job at a regular company with regular benefits, and I lived in a suburb with cookie-cutter houses, where most of the residents had the same education, income, and race. I actually went to Tupperware parties. Two Tupperware parties. {—-shiver—-}
Of all the things that frighten me this season – of all the drifting phobias of ghosts and goblins and witches and monsters – the only thing that scares me to the bone isn’t supernatural at all. It’s spiders.