Ejector Seat/Trap Door

Last night I was running late for picking Serene up to go to practice with Patrick.
She texted me for an ETA. I said, "15 min?" She replied: "Well you need to call Patrick then."
I retorted: "I do huh?" And she said: "Considering we were supposed to be there 20 minutes ago I'd say yeah." And then I said, " 'we' did not say that. Unless you meant the royal we." That effectively ended our text message dialogue. When I picked her up at the house it was icey. I was feeling irritated because I had just hauled ass from Tyson's Corner to Alexandria to NW DC to pick her up and it seemed like she was doing an awful lot of complaining for someone who just has to wait to get picked up and because I was probably still harboring residual frustration from the night before when she decided not to meet me in Clarendon for the failed Whitlow's music biz conference. When she got in the car she said that I should have let her know I was running late because she bent over backwards to get out of work and now would have to go in early in the morning to finish for no good reason. And then I blew up and said I didn't want to practice anyway, that it wasn't fun and should be, that I didn't give a shit about playing after a kid's show in greenbelt md, that I didn't need someone to be domineering towards me when I'm the one driving all over hell's half acre to get from here to there, that I would call Patrick and let him know we weren't playing, that she was aggressive in her speech. And she just said, "please don't do this." and then I remembered that I was dealing with a person and I came to my senses. But she commented that she was worried that I always seem extreme in my reaction to conflict, that I disappear and pull away and that she doesn't want to have to worry about what she says for fear that I'll react in an extreme way. And after practice I felt so low and sorry for what i'd done and felt like i'd ruined everything. Becasue this is the type of knee jerk thing I would have done with Reveley and I thought I'd become more patient/less reactionary in my responses to stress. So what are the lessons of this exchange? That I need to be more upfront about what I'm feeling, that I need to be more conscientious about other people's schedules/timeframes, that when I begin to feel angry i need to address it before it escalates, that above all i need to take my hand of the ejector seat lever and board up that old familiar trap door. Running can't always be my first response. Distance can't be the default answer to every problem. I need to plant my feet and negotiate the thorns.