Thank you for the links.
I've done my first ever successful airdrop from my iPhone to mbp - I didn't change anything it just worked. I haven't tried for a while so it might be that one of the recent OS updates helped? Anyways, nice to have that working 🙂
I did a safemode start up and it started very slow, had some weird black screen with white lines screen scrolling happen, and overall the system just ran real slow and sluggish. Have shut down and started things back up again and it's back to the way is was. I cleared the start up items and log in items (nothing was in the log in items folder, only one in start up) but that too didn't affect anything.
I really appreciate the added suggestions, thank you.
I'm going to have to steady the nerves, back up the files, and dive in for a clean install...ugh...