He did it! He did it! He did it!!! But was there ever any doubt?! Heck no! My man is awesome!! More than 4 years this journey has been our ride and now it is time to get off and see what is next!
Eric Gladden - 2021 Graduate of Clemson University with his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering. He has accomplished his lifelong dream!
So, this blog, this story, is going to be one straight from my gut and heart and so its gonna get lovey dovey, mushy, Jesus praising, off the rails then back on the track kinda good up in here. So if you want to take the ride, get your popcorn and settle in for this read. If not, bye! 😂 Also - awesome photos at the end! So, you may want to peek those!
2013 - I met that gorgeous thing named Eric Gladden! Wooo-weeee but was I a sucker for those dimples?! I knew I was going to marry him immediately. When we met, we were never apart again. He was my yankee and I his southern belle. We have been together since day one of meeting and his love and care and patience with and for me has been all the things I prayed for in a husband. Y'all, I would have rather stayed single all my life than marry any man one teensy bit less than the man Eric is. I do NOT settle. I prayed for this man for my life and God sent him to me in His good timing.
Eric talked about dreams. He had dreams for his future. He always knew what he wanted and I loved that about him. He wanted God, to marry me, to be a daddy, and he wanted to be a Chemical Engineer. He wanted to love and serve and provide for his family and he wanted to be hands on in the action of chemical engineering and research.
So he told me about his desire to go back to school to get that bachelors in Chemical Engineering. He had an associates in Chemistry and he has been with his company since his first college graduation...so...16 years now. So proud of that and we love his company and how awesome they are to their employees! But Eric always had that lingering desire to get that bachelors and follow his dream and he had hit that point of going as high as he could go with what he had. At some point while I was still trying to just graduate from high school and he was a grown and working man....😂 he did begin attending classes at another university in Michigan. But, without going into the intimate details of Eric's life oh so many years ago and dragging anyone through the mud....he was "encouraged" by certain influences in his life at the time to shelve those dreams. And being a selfless person, he did. But God had a plan.
Then one awesome day, Eric met me and all I ever wanted was to be a wife to my loving Godly man and be his helpmate and biggest cheerleader.
2014 - So, I told him at the pool of his neighborhood at the time while hanging out one day as he talked about these desires again, "Go back to school! Go now." (Engaged at the time) "We don't have any babies yet, we have all the flexibility in the world, now is the time! Just do it! You are always talking about it so do the thing! You will rock it and be done in a few years probably by the time we are ready for a baby, if we even have kids." Ha! "if we even have kids." My how life changes and I am so glad God is in control of those changes. Well y'all, he looked into it with all sincerity. Remember, he had a great full time job and becoming a part time student would mean some cooperation from his employers. At the time, they were not able for whatever reason to offer him this opportunity and time to go back to school. So there sat Eric in 2014 with a mapped out course schedule and a dead end. "One day," we said. And life carried on.
2015 - I'm that man's Mrs!!! We got married!! I married my best friend and favorite person on Earth, what a blessing!!!
2016 - "Let's have a baby!!" 2 months later...***Pregnant! Woooo!! Then...."Hey Em, work is gonna pay for me to get my Chem E degree. I'm starting at tech then transferring to Clemson." ...."Oh wow!! Awesome! It'll be ok! I'll be home with the baby and I'll be able to care for her, the house and for you and make sure you are fed and able to study! You won't have to worry with anything! I'm gonna help you!!" Eric was excited but had the obvious thoughts of like, oh man! We are having a baby and I'm going back to school.....I mean here is the thing....when Eric and I talked about his return to school initially we weren't even married yet. We had been talking about this for years but God said "No!" to our timeline. To my simple human mind it made so much sense for Eric to get this degree while we are childless and pretty free to come and go as we pleased with ourselves. But, for some reason, I may still not have quite figured out yet I trust, God made us wait on this endeavor UNTIL we were ready to start trying to get pregnant. We actively knew we wanted a baby and we actively knew we wanted to get Eric that degree. We didn't blindly just get pregnant and "oh crap!" Sign up for school, too. No, prayerfully, seeking God's will, intentionally, we approached these things. Eric in fact was actually approached by a boss of his at the time asking Eric if he were ready to take this next step because he KNEW Eric could do it and would have so much to offer as a chemical engineer...because y'all...Eric is awesome. I know I am his wife, but, like, he is really freakin' awesome and I'm so proud and happy and thankful I get to be his wife. He is so so awesome. So, Eric and I had just agreed now was the time we were ready to create our family and then God presented Eric this opportunity to obtain the degree all paid for by his company.
2017 - January 9: Eric starts back to college beginning at Greenville Technical College. Meanwhile, I'm barefoot and pregnant and I quit working by February. Then, come August 1, "It's a girl!" ....Baby Ellie makes her arrival in a bit of a dramatic and scary fast fashion. So now we never ever slept anymore; but we didn't stop there, ohhhh noooo. By November of 2017, we sold our house (we had been looking for land all the way up to my actual due date day!) bought land, got a rental home, and by January of 2018, broke ground on our property to build OUR special home. Because, why not just do ALL the things at once?! Right?! Bahahahaha! God's will and timing is so definitely above my own understanding most of the time but I trust it 100% and I am so grateful for it.
2018- August - Eric is now at Clemson continuing his journey. We took a deep breath, praised God and embraced parenthood, the stress of building a home while living in a box with literal boxes all around us for months, and saw Eric less and less with every passing semester. Every semester seemed to drain us and strip us of time with one another more and more.
I cannot emphasize enough how much this was all the will of God. If I were the one in control (and literally thank God I am NOT!) life would have gone down like this: Get Bachelors, Sell and Build House, Have baby. But God had and still does have an active perfect plan in that crazy timeline this all transpired and every teeny tiny detail of events in our lives matters in the plan of God. So I am thankful for all of it whether I ever know His reasons or not. I just really truly trust Him even when my Type A self is like, "ahhh what is happening?!"
So, Eric begins school at Clemson and I continue to figure out being a "Single mom" (or so it felt) 5-6 days a week depending on the semester. And we say "single mom" lightly. So lightly. Because first of all, all the time I still had this incredible, loving, hard working, supportive, and helpful husband who even though he worked a full day and week, went to school just shy of full time too, came home and washed dishes, changed diapers, did night time feedings, and made me fancy bubble baths and took me on romantical dates. He slept 3, maybe 4 hours a night if he was lucky. Yup. He still put us second (God first always y'all or it doesn't work!) We also called me a "single mom" lightly and loosely because man oh man - so lonely - literally 5 days a week at least!! I cannot imagine the real pains and work a single mom must experience. I didn't see Eric most of the week through this journey (until Covid-19, which in that respect we are thankful for). But, a single mom still has to hustle a job, care for the kids, do ALL the things for the house and the car and errands and the bills. So I KNOW I didn't really share that pain, so I mean NO disrespect at all. In fact, quite the opposite! Hats off, ladies! But, it was hard to be so lonely and miss seeing my husband and best friend. It was sad to experience so much life without Eric always home because of the insane hours he worked between the two obligations and the commuting. But you know what? As little as he was able to be home with his girls, God allowed him never to miss any of Ellie's "firsts." God is ALWAYS good. I'd say just about the end of every Fall semester I had a big fat cry baby breakdown at the end of exam week where I would tell him, "I'm sorry! I'm crying, I'm frustrated, lonely, and sick of this, but I am so proud of you! Don't quit! Don't let me crying make you quit! I'm just so tired and miss you!!" I would hold ALL of this in EVERY semester as to be supportive to him so that he wouldn't quit because he loves us so so so well and so much that he would quit to make me happy if he knew how sad I felt or how much I was struggling. But I am only happy if he is really happy and I knew obtaining this dream was temporary and important and he deserved to be able to do that and I WANTED him to do it. H gives us EVERYTHING it's the least I could do. But I still missed him! I used to take Ellie to playgrounds and at 5:30 pm every weekday all the daddies would show up to meet the moms and the kids and talk about their days and I knew I wouldn't see my husband come to the playground to play with me and Ellie or come home that night because it would be so late and I knew he would leave so early I wouldn't see him when I woke up. He was only home to rest briefly before waking up and starting all over. I cried on a playground one day watching a family interact with one another and I just wanted my husband so so so bad. But once again - more than my personal desires, I desired for him to do this thing and in the grand scheme, 3 years is short. I had to make sure I supported him well as I'd promised I would. It was a really hard journey for all of us. He made excellent grades, almost always all A's and occasionally a B. He stayed on the Dean's List....ALL while working full time and being an involved and devoted and loving husband and father. He made up for the time lost in the week on weekends and would study late into the night after spending days with his girls. And He managed to keep those awesome grades. There is so much to be said for that. And, friends, as hard as this was for me and as lonely as I felt during the pressing semesters, I KNOW he felt those pains twice as much. He was missing his little baby which is why he was happy to do night feedings and diaper changes and sneak into see her whenever he could. This is why he made special plans at home or out alone for the two of us. He was EXHAUSTED all the time. He was a different person during a semester compared to the week after exams when he was childlike, loose, free, silly, and funny. He never slept. Getting a bachelors in Chem E when you're 18-22 years old is hard. When you're in your mid to upper 30s and you are a truly loving and devoted Husband who actually prioritizes his wife and daughter, and has a full time career, Chem E is very hard. And he just aced it. But you know what? God did that through Eric. Eric's success and the success of our marriage and parenthood through this journey and the love we grew in during this time all came from God. Only God could have made this thing happen and happen so successfully. God granted the opportunity, the energy, the awesome grades, the love that only had growing flames of desire between us as husband and wife, and Ellie and her daddy as she has an amazing relationship with Eric. Only God can do that. Only God can bring you through those tribulations and struggles. He deserves ALL the glory. Not Eric, not me. God. God did this. God gave Eric that degree and Eric was faithful to God. God has blessed us immensely through this CRAZY past 4 years and some odd months. We have grown....like.....cannot even measure the growth. Literally in 4+ years we went from being two adults both working our careers and being childless to becoming parents, building our dream home, obtaining the Chem E degree, and so much growth in marriage and in life and in the Holy Spirit. 4 years. 4 years and I don't even recognize the people we were before all of this. And maybe that was just one reason for God's timing. I don't know. But I loved who we were before, and now I am madly in love with who God made us Gladdens to be with one another IN HIS NAME. We are more in love than ever, happier, stronger, and our priorities are solid.
And, I'm just really proud of Eric. It's funny too, again, what is life going to look like now? Will it be "normal?" Because we went from being childless one day to suddenly taking on the whole world in one stint and now I've got a little whiplash and it seems like we can embrace living life fully with one another now not concerned with meetings with classmates, due dates (of the baby or school variety), crazy commutes, sleepless nights. Now we can maybe breathe? Maybe? At least for a moment?Hahaha!
Eric, my E,
I'm so proud of you. I'm proud to be your wife. I'm proud of you for seeking God with a level and clear head and your willing heart to listen and obey Him. It is an honor to be lead by you. You are the "as close to perfect on earth" example of a Godly leader who loves his wife and daughter selflessly and caringly. You DESERVE your dream and I am so thankful God allowed you this day. I am humbled and honored to be the woman you would choose to be by your side holding your hand, at your back supporting you, and at your front, embracing you in loving hugs. I love the joy I see in your dimples and golden eyes. I love your gray hair that has only gotten more and more silver through the past 4 years 😂😂😂 . I love how smart, efficient, productive, determined, and good at problem solving you are. It is so attractive. I truly trust and know that there is not nor has there ever been a problem I've brought to you that you haven't been able to solve or fix for me. You are diligent, patient, thoughtful. You are calm, level, and peaceful. You are a rock, a solid wall, and a safe comfortable harbor of protection. Obviously I love you with all of my heart, but dude, I just so like you, too! Like, I really like you and who you are. You make me laugh and give me butterflies still, 8 years in. I want to always stand by you and support you and make sure you feel loved, respected, and believed in. You are MY handsome, adorable, cute, funny, sweet, thoughtful, darling, CHEMICAL ENGINEER husband!! You go baby doll!!! I'll not stop praying you through, now that your big journey is complete. Now you are on a new journey and I'll continue my role and pray for you every day, and I know Ellie will too. You are so loved. Seek to glorify God in all you do and you'll not fail. We've got you back, God, me, and Ellie...and I guess Blondie too....though I don't know how much I would trust her...😂😂😂. I love you sweetie!!!
-Proudest wife EVER,
Your Emmaline💓
Below are photos me and my awesome mama took together for Eric's graduation/senior photos. Thanks for being a good sport, buddy.
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