1. Prologue

When my retired kindergarten teacher neighbor introduced herself and learned I was a full-time working, divorced mom who had just bought a house in the woods—complete with propane, septic, and spring water, plus seventeen stairs to the front door—she stared at me like I had announced I was homesteading with nothing but a butter churn and a dream. Her hands clutched her cardigan as she struggled for words.

"But… who kills your spiders?" she finally whispered.

That question stuck.

Not because I didn’t have an answer—sometimes I smash them, sometimes I freeze, sometimes I politely ask them to leave. 

It stuck because the question exposed the quiet myth so many of us live with: that we need someone else to handle the hard stuff.

Spiders. Men. Online dating. Expectations. This is my story. 

But Who Kills Your Spiders? is part memoir, part dating postmortem, and fully a work in progress (as we all are). It’s just me, sharing my stories. So there’s probably some typos and other bugs. Regardless, if you read something that sparks—a memory, a feeling, some feedback, or a “oh god, SAME”—I’d love for you to reply and share your thoughts! And please feel free to forward to a friend who might need a laugh (or a little solidarity).

Blue skies,
Carla