I was trying to remember how to alias commands when I accidentally thought this was a good idea:
alias exit='e'
I had overwritten the exit command! While searching for the answer I saw this here: http://www.linfo.org/alias.html "unalias removes not only aliases created during the current session but also permanent aliases that are listed in system configuration files." I don't know exactly what this entails but I didn't want to somehow lose the exit command forever.
I couldn't find anything that definitively answered my question, but when I exited out of the terminal and reopened it, I typed exit and it worked and is still working. Could someone explain what I did and if exiting out of the terminal(by clicking the x) is a true solution to the problem?