As stated above, the program doesnt respond to any command via the contents panel. I need to access multiple layers to perform edits, I figured to just let the program wait and it would kick into gear eventually, but its been over 2 hours...
Edit: They do respond and are accessible when I am in any of my previous Layout tabs; just not when I am in the Map tab. I can highlight over them but and right click, but everything is grayed out.
Soltan - the dimmed color (gray) that you mention in the Contents Pane means there is a scale dependent display set for those layers. You can remove them if you prefer. Then you can complete your edits/works in Map View. To learn more about displaying layers at certain scale, click here.