Well, nevermind. I poked around literally ALLLLLL DAY....and after hours and hours of looking I finally stumbled upon the solution. (seriously wish things were easier to find in Moodle!)
Just in case someone else has this problem...or I have it again someday and forget how to solve it...
Site Admin>plugins>enrollments>self-enrollment
I apparently had turned it off there....I KNEW it was something like that but couldn't for the life of me remember what I did!
So, problem solved. For now. Until the next issue, LOL.