I sort of understand how you feel.
When I was young I read a lot of books about big cats (besides dinosaurs, which were my first love), and was especially drawn to a National Geographic title called The Emerald Realm. I read that book every chance I got, I loved the pictures and the stories about the rainforests of South America. I was enthralled when I learned even more about the rainforest in my 4th grade class as part of a science/creative writing unit.
My aunt gave me a leopard plush backpack around that time, and I wore it every time I rode my bike around my parents' neighborhood. I thought of it as a jaguar, not a leopard. Every time I wore that backpack, I felt protected and safe. I felt confident and sure, even though I am clumsy and slow physically--that presence of the animal reassured me, somehow.
To this day I find I am still connected to the jaguar. Meditations that I do on my own time with animal guides, dreams that I've had over the years, the stories I've written as a child--all of these things have the jaguar in common. Even the earliest versions of my main fursona, Iara's (the feathered dinosaur in my avatar), stories I wrote as a child involved travel to South American rainforests and connection with a jaguar as a guide.
Could it just be synchronicity? After all, my academic mentor (guide) in real life was from South America.
Could it all be some kind of bizarre coincidence, or is Spirit moving through me, telling me there is something more to this connection between me and this powerful symbol of a big cat? Could I have been this animal in a past life--is that why I was so drawn to it as a child?
Despite all this, I do not consider myself a therian either. Perhaps I am stuck in Africa's longest river system, but I prefer to see myself as human, too.
Being furry is about being creative, and accepting this aspect of yourself, of feeling like a kid again, or whole, as you put it. Perhaps your fox speaks to you in the same way the jaguar does to me.
Nothing wrong with that!