my role allows for "Starts a managed cluster". While looking at permissions together my databricks session refreshed. I could then see my coworker's notebooks. After which I refreshed the page, opened a test notebook, started our managed cluster we use for the group, ran the notebook, and it ran and finished every cell as designed.
While we did not make any changes- maybe.... there were changes that occurred but which we were not aware of? What if our ip from vpn didn't get added to a databricks backend white list (if that exists)- I suspect I'd have the issue we started off with. That's just a hypothetical. If it happens again I will check my ip, disconnect and reconnect until i get a new one. Possibly even change work wifi/network if needed. And then update w/ results.
Regardless, everything works now. So problem solved and case closed :)