We analyze the behavior of polarized complex variations of Hodge structure on the punctured unit disk. For integral variations of Hodge structure, this analysis was first carried out by Wilfried Schmid. We get rid of the assumption that the eigenvalues of the monodromy transformation are roots of unity. In this generality, we give new (and, we think, more conceptual) proofs for all the major results in Schmid's paper, such as the estimates for the rate of growth of the Hodge norm; the existence of a limiting mixed Hodge structure; the nilpotent orbit theorem; and a simplified (but still sufficiently powerful) version of the SL(2)-orbit theorem.