The Perils of Boredom

Dear Friends,
All the way into my early forties, I wasn't able to identify my feelings. I mistook hunger for anger, fatigue for sadness and dehydration for irritability. 
It was only a few days ago that I realized I had been mistaking boredom for early signs of mental illness.
Since I thought of myself as a happy veteran grade one teacher, I hadn't noticed that the comfortable pillar of expertise, against which I had been leaning for the last 13 years, had become my tombstone. 

My bored mind had begun to play dirty tricks on me. Not only it made me rehash the bygones and needlessly worry about the time yet to come, but it also made me doubt myself. 
Since I couldn't explain my dissatisfaction with the life that I myself had designed, I blamed my Doomsland state of mind on menopause, the weather and the atrocities around the world. However, the day I walked out of my principal's office with a new assignment in hand, I saw the light. 
As passion surged and invaded my "imbalanced" mind, I spent the first night planning my program, without having a clue about the grade three curriculum. 
As days go by, I feel more invigorated. I'm excited about all the challenges that the leap to grade three presents to me. The outpour of support from my colleagues is reassuring. 
While waiting for the fear of the unknown to kick in (probably in late August) I'm wondering about the perils of boredom. There is so little mention of it in all the self-help books that I have. The answer to my problems was not hidden in male companionship, binging or exotic scenery, but in changing assignments. Come to think of it, teaching a different grade is much less complicated than romance, change of address or losing weight. Accepted and filed! What have you accepted and filed today?