Well, it’s January 4, 2026. How is everyone’s New Year going so far?
Ours has been full and quite interesting. After some back and forth with an apartment complex in Wilmington, Josh and another dad signed to be guarantors for Mack and his room mate. It wasn’t a straightforward application. There were several delays and lack of communication on the apartment’s part. But we finally paid all the app fees once they figured out how to tell us to do that. Again, nothing made sense on the site. Even to them.
Josh told them that we were planning to drive over Jan 2 so we could help Mack get moved in. Would this be ok? They didn’t say we could for sure move in that day, but probably. We were ok with that because if we “probably” would get in Jan 2, then worst case we would have to move him in Jan 3.
So like optimistic idiots, we set out with a truck bed full of furniture. And Mack followed with his jeep packed to the hilt. But unfortunately we got news on Jan 2 that “it isn’t looking good for moving in today.” And also, “We apologize. It doesn’t usually take this long.”
We prayed and hoped. We went to dinner. We got some things for Mack from Target. We had the most horrible night of sleep in the Hampton Inn. And woke up to a new employee to deal with on Jan 3. Oh sweet Lilliana was a real joy. And I mean that in the most opposite way. Josh explained again our situation—“We are here from Charlotte. Our son starts classes Monday. He needs help moving this stuff in. We did all we were supposed to do. Background checks don’t take this long on people with perfectly clean backgrounds. Plus zero debt.” (Not to mention—we sat outside the apartments waiting to sign the lease and saw all manner of person walking around. And I don’t mean to sound horrible but it was clear this was just a regular old apartment. Not sure what they were checking for on the background check. Seemed quite obvious most anyone can get an apartment there.)
Am I still bitter? Why yes, yes I am.
All sweet Lilliana would do is email us every couple hours—“Just to update, there is no update.”
Oh Lilliana. You’re not being helpful. I asked her at the end of this day if there was one more thing she could do to just make sure there’s no way we could get the lease signed today. I reminded her that we were there and ready to move in. Willing to pay the six months rent upfront if that would help. We were desperate parents just trying to help get our son situated. She blankly looked at me and said, “You know all I know.” And I’m like—yes, Lilliana. And therein is the problem. I don’t work here. You do.
I asked her if she could call corporate and see if the background checks maybe were there? She said she had emailed and they told her no update was available.
Email. What is wrong with these people? She was young and seemingly indifferent and unmotivated to help us. To make a phone call seemed like a crazy thing to do. Sending an email is not helpful at this point and yet she just wasn’t interested in hearing any of our ideas. And we had a few good ones. None of them seemed to land with Lilliana. She preferred emailing every few hours and doing nothing. It was maddening.
So in an effort to try and look for a silver lining, I came up with a summary of lessons from sweet Lilliana. I even found myself, when I felt unmotivated today to do some laundry or take that three mile walk or go to the gym or make good food choices, saying, “Don’t be like Lilliana.”
Lazy. Indifferent. Unhelpful. Unable to think outside the box. Here is my takeaway sheet for when I’m feeling like being a Lilliana.
Maybe you can also use this reminder as you start your 2026?
As far as Mack, well…he’s going to doing some growing up this week as he has had to store some things in a friend’s garage. He stayed one night with the friend and then he is staying tonight in a hotel. He has classes at 9am. Then maybe, just maybe, the apartment complex will let them sign the lease and move in tomorrow evening. He doesn’t have classes on Tuesday so he will have that day as well to get his life set up. He will be fine. It just wasn’t how we wanted it to go. But if I needed to glean the “Lessons from Lilliana,”then I guess it had to go that way.
Happy New Year!
