Please help a frustrated 67-72 lover

[69ChevySB]

Ok guys, i'm to the point where I don't know what the heck i'm gonna do, I don't know if I will ever get my truck going again, if I should, or if I should sell it and buy a new one....heres my problem....

ok, a couple months ago I got in a wreck and bent the front of my frame, I heated it with a torch and bent it back so it looked straight like the other one, but my mistake was that I didn't look to see if they were both level with one another, turns out they weren't, one side is 1 inch lower than the other.

So after lots of hard work and what not, I come to find that I have gotten no where, and it's very disappointing because everytime I think that there is a chance that I will be on the road again with my truck that I worked so hard for and paid for myself, I find something else wrong and it kicks me all the way back down to the bottom of the ladder. I thought I met an honest guy who might help me out and hopefully I could be driving soon again. It turns out that he has a spare shortbed frame that has the last 8 inches or so cut off the back (don't know why), but anyway the guy says he will sell me it for 400$ and he also says that it will probably cost $500 to switch it over to the other frame..

so all in all, i'm looking at almost $1000 to put a different frame on my truck. Does this seem right? the guy knows lots about these trucks so I admire his knowledge, but that is a lot of money for a frame i'm thinking...I see them go in the parts board for 150-350 for a straight shortbed frame...so i'm wondering if you folks could PLEASE help me out, i'm extremely frustrated, and I want to go back to school very badly, but I can't as long as my truck is down. someone please help me out I can't take this anymore i'm sick of all this...seems that for $1000, I have a pretty good chance of going out and just getting another truck like this for that much.

Is it really that hard to switch everything over to a different frame? or is it just time consuming...I have never done this, what is the best way to approach this?

Does $1000 seem kind of high for what I am trying to do?

seems to me for that much I can take it to an autobody shop and have them fix my frame pretty close to perfect...hell I don't know...nobody wants to help me out and i'm very stressed out about this right now I have no clue what to do...will I ever have a nice truck again? I only have $500 right now, and it seems like it is taking forever to save my money because i'm always taking off days trying to get help and advice on my situation. so if someone has the slightest bit of sympathy, please help me out and tell me what I should do. thanks

*sorry it was such a long message, but this issue is continuously bothersome to me, and it's hard to explain exactly what i'm going through right now...it's actually depressing as hell I don't know if you guys have ever been through this before or not. but anyway, thanks again*